Touch
by flowerpicture
Summary: In which Derek needs the touch of Stiles' skin to survive. Accidental bonding. First time.


**AN: Originally posted on AO3 but added here due to tumblr anon requests. Many thanks to the lovely Plum! For helping me out with this fic and my nerves, and for suffering through Hoechlin-shaped sexual frustration with me.**

::: :::

He's going to die in these woods. Not now, not tonight; he's here for intel and nothing more, and he's got no plans to invite a round of mortal danger when he's got a test to study for later. But he will die here in these woods, one day, hopefully far off in the distant future but maybe not, maybe sooner than he wants but it wouldn't be a _surprise_. These woods are the heart of everything in his life, where it began and where it will end and he's dreamed about it, a recurring dream hitting him hard after those nights spent running for his life: he dies in a pool of his own blood right here, somewhere, propped against the roots of a gnarled tree. It's inevitable, and he's not psychic, but he _knows_. A fate he accepted when his best friend became a werewolf and he chose not to flee from it, from Scott, from this life of panic and fear and the supernatural.

It's the kind of knowledge he's pushed into a dark compartment in the corner of his mind. It didn't take him long to learn the art of effective avoidance.

And it doesn't take him long to find the house. It's small, a cabin almost, nothing like Derek's old burned-out shell. The window frames still contain glass, shiny and clean and kempt, no lights inside to indicate an inhabitant but there's an air of upkeep around the building, of fresh paint and an attempt at weeding and a repaired slat or two along the porch. There's nothing threatening about this cabin, tucked away in a woodland clearing, aside from the possibility of a psychotic murderer hiding within it.

Scott told him to wait. "Don't go inside," he said, earlier, when Stiles called to tell him he'd found a pattern, a likely location, and they needed to check it out. "Wait for me."

It's a plan, a good plan; he's only human, and this thing might not be, and he's not stupid. So he waits, hides down the side of the house, crouching in the shadows and keeping an ear out because he might not be a werewolf, but his senses have developed over time anyway. He hears nothing but the rustle of the woods, the wind in the trees and his own heartbeat in his ears.

It's cold out here, approaching midnight with the temperature dropping and he's not wearing enough—his usual layers, a shirt upon a shirt and his oldest pair of jeans. The breeze is creeping through the material while he crouches here stationary and an involuntary shiver stutters through him.

He has to move. Cramped legs and cold bones and where _is_ Scott, goddammit, because if he's still off somewhere wrapped around Allison, Stiles will—

_Stiles_…

It's his name carried on the wind, a voice he doesn't recognize and a tone like silk across his skin. He freezes, halfway to standing, intent on walking the perimeter of the house but now there's someone whispering to him and he doesn't know what to do, where to look.

_Stiles…_

Someone, or some_thing_.

He swallows, a dry scratch into his throat, and waits. Maybe it's his imagination. The woods can have that effect; the distortion of reality, the edge of unknown. Maybe, if he's lucky, it's nothing, and Scott will turn up and they'll search the house and he'll go home to his bed, the test he needs to study for, and the complete absence of silky whispers caressing his ear.

He digs out his phone, doesn't know what he plans on doing with it—call Scott, but he doesn't want to make a sound. Text Scott, but his fingers are brittle in the cold and he can't seem to focus on the phone screen because there's his name again, louder now, sensually female and enticing him, tempting—

_Stiles…_

She stretches the word out, lilting in the middle, melodic and compelling and he's standing upright before he thinks to move, slipping his phone back into his pocket and drawing in a long, smooth breath, calmness washing over him.

He wants to know who the voice belongs to.

There's no other thought in his head but the sweet enticement of the voice, his name spoken in such alluring tones and he's captivated when he hears it again, blinking sluggishly as his vision narrows and he steps out of the shadows, legs moving without his command while his heartbeat slows and dulls and the voice, the seduction of that voice, pushes in under his skin and steals his breath—

_Come inside, Stiles._

He shouldn't, he knows he shouldn't, but he can't remember _why_ and there's silence all around him, silence in his own head, nothing except darkness but for one light, a single light glowing softly through a window of the cabin and he could've sworn it wasn't there before—

_Come to me, Stiles._

He will; he wants to—needs to see her, needs to know who she is. Approaches the porch, focuses on the glow through the window, the voice in the air transforming into the sweetest, most beautiful laugh he's ever heard, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end—

"What are you doing?"

The startle that rocks through him makes him jerk and twist at the wrong angle, his foot just missing the first step up to the porch and he slips, falls sideways against hard wood, breath knocking out of him and Derek stood there, eyebrow raised, looking at him like he can't believe he's dealing with this, with _him_.

"Uh—"

Stiles can't hear anything now; the voice has gone, and the sounds of the woods slowly creep back in. There's a fuzziness to his brain and he shakes his head, rubs a hand over his face.

"Stiles."

"Yeah—I just." He waits half a beat for Derek to offer him a hand up, but when that doesn't happen, he huffs and struggles back onto his feet, brushing himself off. Then he eyes Derek, injects suspicion into his tone: "What are _you_ doing?"

"I asked you first."

"Really? Are we going there?"

Apparently they are, because Derek does nothing but tighten his jaw and stare him down. Stiles sighs in defeat. "There was a—someone was saying my name. In there."

Maybe. Everything he felt—the temptation of the voice, the compulsion to follow it, do what it says—vanished the instant Derek's abrupt presence brought him back to his senses. And the light—

The light's gone. He blinks at where he'd seen the glow, drags a hand through his hair. "But—" He's not speaking to Derek; he's questioning his own sanity. Derek answers him anyway.

"But what? Who was talking to you?"

"I don't—know. Uh." He looks back at Derek, attempting to straighten his thoughts while simultaneously trying not to look like the fool Derek probably thinks he is in this moment.

Derek's got both eyebrows raised now.

"I was down there," Stiles says, pointing around the side of the cabin, "waiting for Scott to show up. And I just—someone said my name. A woman. She told me—she told me to come inside." He ends on a weak note, his skin heating beneath his shirt. When a mysterious voice compels you to do something, you _don't do it._ Not in this town. But he was gonna do it; he was poised to go up these steps and into that house and not one part of him wanted to refuse.

Derek might think he's an idiot, and mostly he'd be right, but Stiles knows himself. Knows he wasn't working on his own volition. "There's something weird going on here," he says, and he takes a sudden step away from the porch, ends up stood next to Derek, looking up at the house.

Derek huffs something that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. "You think?"

Stiles is stuck on the knowledge that Derek apparently believes him, that he doesn't think Stiles is a dumbass, when Derek adds, "It's empty."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"No." Derek pauses, and Stiles is caught for a moment gazing at his profile in the shrouded moonlight. "I mean whatever you heard, it's not a person. There are no heartbeats here. Except yours," he adds, when Stiles opens his mouth to object.

"So what d'you think?"

Derek rounds on him, his expression all business now. "What're you even doing here?"

He doesn't sound accusatory, and Stiles has no reason to keep him in the dark. "I found a pattern," he says, and he doesn't need to explain what the pattern's for because Derek knows, Derek's got his finger on the pulse of everything mysterious in Beacon Hills. "I tracked it back to here and called Scott to meet me and—wait—" He narrows his eyes. "Wait. How did you know I was here?" A sudden thought hits him and it's absurd, and he shouldn't voice it, but he does anyway. "Are you following me?"

Derek rolls his eyes and steps away from him, heads up to the cabin's door. "I was out for a run," he murmurs mildly, trying the handle of the door before stepping to the side and peering through the window.

"And you just happened to run right into me?" Stiles follows him up the steps, half his attention on the possible danger in the cabin, the other half intent on Derek, watching him.

"No." Derek's distracted, answering him in an offhand manner. "I could smell you."

Stiles, frowning, lifts the neck of his shirt to sniff at himself.

"Not that kind of smell," Derek tells him, meeting his eye, the hint of a smirk on his face before he's back to focusing on the front door, stepping entirely too close to Stiles for his comfort. He rattles the doorknob again before white-knuckling his grip around it, and with the crunch of metal against wood, the door swings open.

Stiles isn't sure he agrees with this course of action. "Should we—maybe we better wait for Scott, dude." Something about the door opening sends a shiver down his spine and he can't help but feel like they're asking for trouble, a sense of foreboding creeping across his skin.

Derek doesn't bother responding to the request. "Wait here," he says, and then immediately disappears inside the cabin, leaving Stiles alone and cold and on edge, bouncing up onto his toes and stuffing his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.

He lasts ten seconds before following Derek inside and receives a flat glare of exasperation for it.

"What? It's cold out there."

And, maybe, he's a little freaked out about standing around on his own in the middle of the woods after what just happened to him.

Derek rolls his eyes—_again_—and continues what he was doing, which seems to be checking the cabin owner's book collection. He's pulling out each book, flipping it open, before sliding it back into the bookcase—a bookcase that's stood against a pale lavender wall. Stiles looks around, catalogues the fresh flowers in a vase on the coffee table, the floral throw draped over the couch, a half-drunk cup of coffee on a stand beside the rocking chair in the window. There's a lamp accompanying the coffee cup on the stand and it's in the right position—maybe it's the one Stiles saw, that soft glow; he wants to switch off the main light Derek put on when he entered the room and switch on the lamp, step outside to check how it looks through the window.

But then he's distracted by Derek, watches him silently walk around the room, examining some things and passing his disinterested gaze over others. Stiles doesn't know what they're meant to be achieving here.

He clears his throat. "What are you looking for?"

"You tell me," Derek murmurs in vague tones, now rummaging through a drawer in the oversized mahogany cabinet near the couch. "You're the one who found this place."

"How much do you know?"

Derek pauses, his hands stilling in the drawer. "I've been looking into the murders—"

"What—Derek, this isn't werewolf business. It's human-on-human murder. Police work."

"Then what are you doing here?" Derek asks, turning away from the cabinet to face him, inquisition in his eyes. And it's a fair question; Stiles has to give him that.

"Well I—my dad—I like to find the patterns, okay? And if I can help…"

He trails off awkwardly and Derek stares at him, until he tutts and prompts, "And?"

"And so I looked into the reports and—actually, y'know what?" There's irritation clawing beneath Stiles' skin, making him itch and frustrated. This isn't _anything_ to do with Derek or the world he lives in. Some things are just normal—as normal as homicide can be, anyway. "I'm not discussing police business with you. There's nothing supernatural about this, okay? You don't need to get involved."

"Nothing supernatural," Derek says pointedly, his gaze fixed firm and intent on Stiles. "Except the voice calling your name."

"That was…I don't know what that was." He shifts uncomfortably; the memory of the voice is already fading, little more than the ghost of something in his mind now. "But obviously this place is empty. You said it yourself—"

Derek makes a _hmm_ sound, then mutters, "Maybe," all vague and mysterious and annoying. Then he turns his back on Stiles, approaches the rocking chair, curves his hand around the coffee cup and then presses his palm to the seat of the chair.

"Maybe?" Stiles says, that frustration creeping into his voice.

"Seat's warm."

"But…you didn't hear a heartbeat."

"Maybe it doesn't have a heartbeat."

"It? _It? _Oh, come on. Can't we just have _one thing_ that doesn't—"

Derek turns to face him again, muttering in snappish tones, "If you quit your complaining then we might be able to—_get down_!"

His eyes have gone shockingly wide, focused on a point just past Stiles' shoulder, and every inch of Stiles' body jerks with panic.

"Get—what—"

And then Derek's got what Stiles calls in his head _the half-wolf_ on, teeth and eyes but not the full thing, not yet, even as he's growling at whatever's behind Stiles and yeah, Stiles is gonna get down now, throws himself to the side and onto the floor, twisting as he goes to get a good look at what they're facing.

It's a blonde woman in a deep-red dress, but that's all Stiles figures out in the split second of what happens next. She lets out a sound like a broken shriek, rattling the walls of this cabin, and the last thing Stiles sees before he squeezes his eyes shut against the ear-splitting noise is Derek poising to pounce.

Then there's a grunt and some kind of scuffle and then Derek's sprawling in a messy lump of limbs beside him. He opens his eyes now the shriek has stopped but then he's facing a light so bright and blinding and pure white, he reckons he's gonna be seeing stars for a week.

When his sight clears again, the woman's gone.

Derek's panting beside him, half leaning against the wall and legs thrown out at awkward angles across the floor. "You still thinking it's nothing supernatural?" he grunts, heaving himself into a less painful-looking position, and Stiles huffs out the most epic of sighs.

"My life, man," he grumbles, pushing up onto his feet. "Here." He offers Derek his hand. Derek stares at it. "C'mon, big guy, we need to get out of here and figure out what we're dealing with before she—"

The moment Derek takes his hand, the instant their palms touch, a sharp pierce of pain like the edge of broken glass passes between them, from Stiles' hand to Derek's or maybe the other way around but either way, it's not pleasant, and Stiles snatches his hand back with a hiss. "Ow, _Jesus,_ what the hell—"

Derek's looking from his hand to Stiles' face, his expression suggesting he's not got the first clue what just happened. "Did you feel that?"

"_Yeah_ I felt it." He sounds a little manic even to his own ears, but he doesn't care. He's _done_ with this night. "What the hell was it?"

"I don't know," Derek says slowly, still wearing that confusion as he stands and shakes himself off. "Some kind of static shock maybe."

"I get static shocks all the time, man, and it never feels anything like that." He narrows his eyes at Derek, as if somehow he can pin the blame on him. "That—that was full-on high voltage—"

There's a crashing of footsteps on the porch outside and Stiles would laugh at how he and Derek whirl around in unison to face whatever the _fuck's_ coming at them now, but he's got no humor left in him.

Turns out, it's only Scott, stopping in the doorway with eyes wide and jaw set in a tight line as he observes the pair of them.

"Stiles, dude, I know I'm late but I told you not to go inside—Derek. What're you doing here?"

For the third time that night, Derek rolls his eyes.

::: :::

Stiles wakes up the following morning with an ache across the back of his neck, a mild irritation just beginning to prickle down his spine. He groans as he rolls out of bed, the last whispers of his dream still coiling around his senses. He can still see Derek's face.

His ache doesn't ease any by the time he makes it to school, but it's not so bad that he can't ignore it. He gives the back of his neck a rub as he retrieves books from his locker, tries to pay attention to what Scott's muttering to him.

"Isaac checked the place out this morning. It's empty."

He perks up at that, closes his locker and glances around for any prying ears. "Empty as in…?"

"As in cleared out," Scott says. "It's just a shell now."

Stiles sighs, half considers bashing his forehead against his locker. "Great. Awesome." Their only lead, and now it's gone.

Scott looks at him with pity; Stiles has filled him in on the events of last night, the surprise appearance of whatever that lady was and her subsequent, and extremely _not_ normal or human, abrupt disappearance. It would be great, it would be really fucking awesome, if weird supernatural _things_ could stop killing the people of his town, just for one minute. It's not asking much.

Scott must read his thoughts on his face, because he says, with a note of empathy in his voice, "We should go to Derek's later, start looking into this properly—"

Stiles winces and jerks forward as the weird ache in his neck gives him a sharp series of stabbing prickles down his spine, making Scott frown at him with concern.

"Hey, you okay, man?"

"Yeah. Just." He sighs and rubs his neck again. "Bit of muscle tension or something." He's blaming it on that _thing_ from last night, that woman, making him twist around at the wrong angle in his panic and obviously jarring something loose. If it gets any worse, he'll need to have it looked at, and he really doesn't have time for that.

Scott's talking again, but Stiles' attention snaps to his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulls it out, eyebrows knitting together when he sees who the text is from.

Derek.

_Come to mine now. Alone._

"Who's that?"

"Uh…no one. My dad. Let me just—" He types out a quick reply.

_Can't. School_.

Then he looks up to see the curiosity on Scott's face and he could tell him the truth, it's no big deal, but there's something holding him back. "Where's Isaac now?" he asks and it's not deflection, not quite; he has a reason for wanting to see him. "I need to ask him if he saw anything or—or felt anything. At the house this morning."

"I dunno," Scott says after a beat and it's obvious he's not quite buying it, Stiles' attempt at distraction. "I think he's got chem. But he said there was nothing there, dude. Like I told you."

"I know, but something like that can't just vanish without a trace—" His phone buzzes again, and he's reading the text before he has time to consider how suspicious he looks.

_Skip it. I need you to come here._

"Everything okay with your dad?"

"Yeah," Stiles says, tries to sound breezy even when he knows it's pointless. "Yeah, he just. It's nothing."

"You know I can tell when you're lying."

Another text.

_It's important._

Stiles' heart is racing both at the ominous tone of Derek's messages and the knowing accusation in Scott's words. But he's only got the ability to deal with one thing at a time here and he makes his choice. "Hey, you going to class now? I'll meet you there, okay?"

Then he walks away, head bowed, feeling like the worst kind of friend. Everything they've been through together, the bond they share, and Stiles can't just tell him he's going to see Derek?

But there's something…something telling him not to, not yet. Something heavy and hot sitting in the center of his chest.

"Stiles—"

"I just need a minute," he calls over his shoulder, breaking into a jog down the hall and typing a response on his phone.

_Okay._

Derek's answer is a needless reminder: _Come alone._

::: :::

He doesn't even get chance to knock at Derek's loft. He's got his fist raised when the door swings open, presenting him with a Derek Hale whose appearance steals the air from him.

The man's pale, too pale, beads of sweat on his skin and his body trembling and a ring of red around his eyes that makes him look like a junkie. He looks like _death_, and he's stuttering in breaths and gazing at Stiles with a weak sort of intensity and it feels like an eternity, stood there looking at each other, only a second or two but too long, too long doing nothing when Derek obviously needs _help_.

"Hey, man," Stiles says, voice shaken and tentative and he needs to ask what's wrong but he can't think how to word it, so he falls back on something safe. "Listen. You can't just pull me out of school like that—hey!"

Shock hammers through him when Derek makes an abrupt move to grab at his shirt, gets his fist in the front of the material and drags him through the door. Stiles gasps, objection stalled in his throat, winces when Derek throws him back against the door he's kicked shut behind him and then freezing, his whole body going taut and stiff, when Derek presses a hand to the bare skin of his throat and holds him there. Gentle, no pressure behind the grip, but he's still _holding Stiles by the throat_ and that's not okay, that doesn't make sense at all. "What're you—dude."

Derek's not listening, or he doesn't appear to be. He's got one hand braced on the door beside Stiles' shoulder, leaning his weight there while he holds onto Stiles' throat and closes his eyes, dips his head and draws in a long breath. There's an edge of tension to him when he squeezes a little, only slightly, a hint of pressure around Stiles' throat and maybe Stiles panics a bit, tries to pull Derek's hand off him but of course he's not strong enough. "Derek, seriously, man—"

"It's not working," Derek mutters and he looks worse now, if possible, something devastatingly desperate about him as he releases his hold on Stiles and drops both arms by his sides. His expression speaks of dejection and fear and he's getting paler by the second, his temples and neck glistening with sweat.

"What's not working? Me? Am I not working?" Because if he's the problem, if he's the one preventing Derek from healing—whatever's wrong with him, god, he looks so bad, so weak and full of pain—

"I don't—"

Derek's eyes, all of a sudden, spark with life—and they widen, as if he's been hit by something, an idea, and Stiles nods like he's encouraging him, _yes, yeah, whatever it is, tell me_—

"Take off your shirt."

It's like the world around him screeches to a grinding halt. "What?"

"Your shirt," Derek says, and he's dragging his hand through his hair with a grimace on his face like it hurts, something, whatever's clawing at him. "Take it off."

"Are you…losing your mind right now? You're actually asking me to start stripping—"

"Stiles, look at me. Look at me."

There's such an edge of pure need in Derek's voice that Stiles can't help but stop his freak-out, ignore the hammering of his heart, and pay attention.

He draws in a steadying breath and says calmly, "I'm listening."

"If you don't take off your shirt"—he's speaking slowly, carefully, like this is important, like it really matters, and he's looking at Stiles as if he's all he sees—"things are gonna get bad."

"Bad?" Stiles swallows, gulps almost. It's _going to_ get bad, like it's not already bad enough—"How?"

"For me. It's gonna get bad for me." Derek's chest is heaving with his words, hitching out labored breaths and he looks two seconds away from collapsing, just crumpling here in a heap and Stiles is confused, so confused, and he doesn't know what to do. "Can you please—just—just—"

"Okay, okay, Jesus." He tugs off his jacket and shirt, heart in his throat and mind swimming with a million thoughts, none of them distinct—but of course he's wearing layers and removing one shirt leaves another and—"All of it, or…?"

Derek nods, teeth clenching in an expression of pain for an instant before he manages to utter, "Down to the skin." And then he's ripping off his own shirt, material catching and tearing in his haste, and for a moment Stiles is captivated by the sight of bare skin and muscle before he remembers what he's meant to be doing.

He removes the rest of his clothing from the waist up, drops everything on the floor beside his feet, and fights the urge to cross his arms over his chest, covering himself. There's a cool draft brushing across him, pebbling his skin. "This is—not weird at all—woah, hey!"

It happens so fast that Stiles doesn't get chance to object. One second he's standing there, cold and half naked, trying not to meet Derek's eye in this _insanely_ bizarre situation; the next, he's got Derek wrapped all around him.

"Shut up. Just shut up." Derek's muttering into Stiles' neck, pressing himself close and looping his arms around Stiles' back. Stiles, at a complete loss for what to do, just stands there, arms hanging limply by his sides. "For once in your life, please."

"You're hugging me right now," Stiles says, stating the fucking obvious, voice strained and dry and Derek's like a furnace against him, scalding hot and so big and smothering and there's no two ways about it: Derek's hugging him.

Derek sighs, breath ghosting across the skin where Stiles' neck meets his shoulder. "I know."

"Right, well," Stiles says, awkwardly bringing a hand up to rest against the small of Derek's bare back, "as long as you know."

They stand like that for a minute, in the uncomfortable silence, and it happens in stages—Derek healing, or whatever the fuck's going on. The shivers in his body stop, the gradual relaxing of his muscles and bones, and as he stands there holding Stiles close to him, as his breathing starts to ease and match Stiles', he cools down.

When Derek breaks the silence, it's with barely more than a whisper. "Contact. Skin-to-skin contact."

"I don't—what—"

"Your skin," Derek says, tightening his hold just a fraction and Stiles—Stiles is trying not to freak out when he can feel every inch of Derek from shoulder to hipbone and maybe a little beyond, if he thinks about it, but he's not thinking about it, he's _not_—"Your touch," Derek adds, words coming out on a soft sigh and his whole body relaxing around Stiles as if this, whatever it is they're doing, is _working_, doing something, making it better, making Derek better, "it's what's gonna keep me alive."

"I'm…gonna need you to elaborate on that."

Because he hasn't got a clue what's going on, no fucking clue what's happening. Why less than a day ago Derek was normal and strong and so obviously fine and now he's _this_, this mess of weakness and sickness and Stiles is the one who's making him better, somehow; whatever's happened between last night and today to make Derek like this, it's Stiles he needs now.

"Just give me a minute," Derek says on another sigh, and Stiles is hit with the sudden realization that the ache in his neck and spine has gone.

TBC

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